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The Tenth Doctor

“Say you’ll remember, oh baby, say you’ll rememberI will love you till The End Of Time“

Lana Del Rey, Blue Jeans

I think what Lana is singing about in this lyrical tribute to the Tenth Doctor’s swan song is the infamous passive-aggressive ‘self-pity’ scene in The End of Time, when the Doctor whines about the unfairness of it all before eventually sacrificing himself to save Wilf. Only he and Wilf are present, so he’s either trying to make the old man feel guilty, or he genuinely feels aggrieved that this once he has to make good on the promise to save others by making the ultimate sacrifice.

“…But me! I could do so much more. So! Much! More! But this is what I get. My reward! And it’s not fair!”

Other Doctors would have just got in the chamber to save the old man, like a hero. Even the Sixth Doctor wasn’t crass enough to guilt-trip Peri after his predecessor took lethal a dose Spectrox Toximea and gave her all the antidote. This must make us re-evaluate the entire Tenth Doctor era. How many times has he seemingly been willing to give everything to save other people?

The Girl in the Fireplace

The Doctor rides Arthur the horse through the mirror to save Madam De Pompadour. He is then cut off from his TARDIS, as exiled as surely as was his third incarnation. His first night is a novelty; quaffing wine with Reinette and flirting away. But how long before life in the slow lane gets to him and he starts to make her feel guilty too? He could be doing so much, but he’s stuck eating snails and frog legs in the court of Louis XIV. He quickly becomes a passive aggressive nightmare to live with, and within a week disappears over the Channel to England, and the weekly invasion of the Home Counties. Let’s face it, aliens have better taste than to ever invade France. Although girls might like to think he would have settled down with the lovely De Pompadour, he wouldn’t.

The Impossible Planet

With the TARDIS seemingly lost, the Doctor contemplates settling down in a house:

“I’ll have to settle down. With a house or something – a proper house with… with, with doors and things – carpets! Me! Living in a house!… Now that, that – that is terrifying.”

Rose then talks about them getting a mortgage together. WHERE DO THEY THINK THEY ARE THEY GOING TO GET A DEPOSIT?! Surely the banks of the future have learnt the lessons of history and aren’t offering 100% mortgages again?

Odd that the Doctor thinks about buying a house instead of hitchhiking through space though.

Needless to say, the Doctor wouldn’t have lived in a house for long. He could be doing SO MUCH, but doesn’t get to because he has to work to pay the mortgage, and she’d have him making the bed (before work, every day), then get in make the tea, wash up, do house work, put the bins out etc. To be fair, he’d probably just sacrifice his principles and get an Ood in.

Forest of the Dead

The Doctor’s going to plug himself into the Library’s mainframe to save the day, until River Song clatters him round the head and does it herself. She’s married to him: she know’s how much he’d whinge and moan if he had to go through with it. Better to plug herself in and save herself the earache.

Evolution of the Daleks

The Doctor stands in the middle of the theatre demanding that the Daleks exterminate him. To no good end. Their plan would just roll on and be successful. He wouldn’t be there at the end to hug the lightning conductor, which can somehow conduct DNA. Again, the Daleks know him well enough to know his dying words would be endless griping (this is the real reason they’ve never killed him, not as the Prime Minister says in Asylum of the Daleks because they find hatred beautiful). The Hooverville residents breathe a collective sigh of relief that he won’t guilt-trip them so much they wished they’d been turned into pig-slaves.